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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25670776">Do Androids Dream of Electric Deer?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasterprincess/pseuds/disasterprincess'>disasterprincess</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Blade Runner (Movies), LOONA (Korea Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cyberpunk, Eventual Romance, F/F, Survival</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:28:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,235</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25670776</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/disasterprincess/pseuds/disasterprincess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Year is 2017: Jo Haseul is part of a small group of bounty hunters known as Blade Runners, commissioned by the Los Angeles' Police Department to hunt down and retire synthetic humans who are illegal on Earth. When a group of replicants escape the off-world colony of New Seoul and make their way to Earth, Jo is assigned the case and becomes entrapped in a shadow conflict between greedy corporations which see no issue in exploiting human suffering - be it synthetic or not - and the moral debate of whether replicants are truly human or not.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jo Haseul/Viian Wong | ViVi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. October 1st, 2017</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The stench of cheap synthetic cigar overloaded Jo Haseul's senses as she stepped inside Lieutenant Guzza's office. Inside the dimly lit room an unkempt man in his late forties sat behind a disordered desk of many ashtrays full to the brim, piles of paper sheets she assumed were police reports, two large CRT monitors emitting a faint neon green light, and a keyboard that had seen better days bearing burn marks all over. </p><p>"Sir," she saluted Guzza whose beady eyes glanced at her momentarily only to quickly return their attention to one of the monitors. "Badge number eight, six, nine, dash, two, zero" the police officer recited almost mechanically, his voice deep and harsh from what Haseul recognised were many years of uninterrupted smoking. "Take a seat, Sergeant Jo," he motioned his cigar holding hand towards the worn out leather chair in front of him.</p><p>Haseul nodded, settling down as told </p><p>"I know you were busy patrolling the Nightclub Row but something has happened and the higher ups are panicking it might spill over the city and cause problems should it be made public. Not that it concerns you, but I just thought you should know why you are being reassigned, Sergeant."</p><p>Guzza puffed his cigar, expelling a stream of white smoke. "Not sure if you ever heard of the New Seoul colony - I mean it's one of the many off-world colonies - but there was some kind of accident, incident, whatever you want to call it. Anyway, a bunch of skin jobs managed to hijack a transport spaceship and vanished without trace. This went on unreported as the local authorities believed they hadn't gone too far. Lo and behold," Guzza dragged out one of his desk's drawers, picking out a paper sheet sized photo and handing it over to Haseul. </p><p>The picture - Ha Seul observed - was a high resolution black and white shot of a spaceship sized object re-entering atmosphere with matching coordinates and a tiny map of the Earth with the probable impact landing marked: a few kilometres away from the Greater Los Angeles border. "Has anyone looked for the ship?" she asked.</p><p>"Anything that falls outside the Greater Los Angeles area is usually ignored -- we don't have the manpower to spare, and in the past we lost too many Blade Runners to scavengers after they were sent to capture and terminate runaway replicants. Out there a badge is nothing but a meaningless piece of metal. I did, however, manage to contact one of the 'legal' metal recyclers operating close the area limits and one of their workers spotted a group making their way towards Los Angeles on foot. This was almost two weeks ago, if they are the skin jobs who escaped the New Seoul colony they should be here by now."</p><p>"Do we have a list?" Guzza nodded affirmatively, turning one of his monitors to face Haseul and inputting a series of commands on his burnt keyboard. Various profiles of several female replicants appeared on the screen, informing her about their original inception date (the day they were put into service), their role, name, origin, replicant series, and their inception photos.</p><p>"They are not your regular Nexus sixes, these entertainment models were specifically commissioned by one of the wealthiest corporations bankrolling the New Seoul colony -- Tyrell won't say what they did different, citing client confidentiality, but one thing that is certain is that they spent a colossal amount of credits."</p><p>"Either they are sending someone to bring back their investment or they asked you not to retire them," Haseul retorted.</p><p>"You are too smart for your own good, Sergeant," Guzza chuckled, puffing smoke towards her. "The LAPD is already struggling with funding as it is, they can't spare any additional resources and you know damn well being a Blade Runner is a live-or-die job. Voight-Kampff machines are expensive, and need to be properly recalibrated every few weeks. So, what's the harm in getting some extra money?"</p><p>Haseul frowned. She knew that Lieutenant Guzza was right: they could use the extra credits, especially to give proper maintenance to the spinner fleet, but she had always felt uncomfortable getting involved with corporate money. She was apolitical by default - rarely ever going beyond her role as a Blade Runner - but when it came to feuds between corporations and they used replicants she tried her best not to get involved.</p><p>"Fine, but this better count double for my retirement pension," Haseul said, crossing her arms. "Is there a known leader? Replicant groups like these always a brain, a more charismatic figure who guides them and on which they depend."</p><p>"That would be... ViVi according to New Seoul," Guzza input a search command, triggering the monitor facing Haseul. After flashing intermittently for a few seconds Vivi's profile materialised. The inception profile shot revealed a young heart shaped face with long light brown silky hair, and deep brown eyes. Although Haseul had never felt any inclinations towards replicants Vivi's appearance took her by surprise, inspecting her picture more closely.</p><p>"Modelled after a Hong Kong superstar from the early 1990's, Tyrell didn't say much other than they designed this one as to provide critical emotional stability to the whole group and prevent any defections. Turns out they forgot to include a fail safe in this one too," Guzza noted.</p><p>"Emotional stability or not Nexus sixes - when cornered - will fight to the death to preserve themselves. I wouldn't trust much what either Tyrell or the New Seoul corporates said: it's very likely they are bluffing, and just want us to their dirty work for them." Haseul added, drawing a short snort from the Lieutenant.</p><p>"Money is money, Sergeant Jo. Replicants are illegal on Earth, and we are being paid twice to get rid of them. It's like that old proverb: killing two birds with one stone. Not to mention that they're entertainment models, they're not equipped to fight. Let's not forget that it's also an order from your superior," Guzzo grinned, crushing down on the desk what remained of his cigar.</p><p>Haseul sighed, rising from her chair. She gave the Lieutenant a curt salute before turning and leaving the office room. Her instinct - honed by years of replicant hunting - warned her this wasn't a simple capture and return mission, and that many aspects of the runaway replicant group were unknown. Odd was also the fact that wealthy off-world colonists had opted to inform Earth's law enforcement of the runaway replicants, instead of hiring mercenaries instead for dealing with their property discreetly. She did not wish to spend too much time thinking over this matter but Haseul worried that something else was at play in the background.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Hidden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Haseul's arrival in Animoid Row via spinner car was met with sudden heavy rain, setting the usual customers and passers-by into frenzy for shelter while more opportunistic vendors promptly peddled the latest trend in recycled plastic made umbrellas with neon lights of all colours. A long time ago -  she remembered reading - rain was considered a good omen. Water brought life to nature, emboldened it to survive and prosper. After the global nuclear wars of the 2000's that was changed. Fallout scattered all over the globe, establishing a permanent layer of radioactive dust that has ever since permeated every cloud formation to hover over Los Angeles. While short term exposure was not the problem, a sizeable portion of the city's population - and indeed of the Earth's - was barred from ever leaving their home planet or emigrating to one of the off-world colonies. For her it was mostly a benign hassle, now a welcomed one as it cleared the road adjacent to Animoid Row to land.</p><p>"Computer, initiate landing procedure."</p><p>A series of beeps acknowledged her command, shifting the spinner's thrusters into vertical mode and slowly descending the flying car to the target landing location. Close enough to the ground the thrusters automatically shut down and the once retracted car wheels extended underneath the vehicle, softening the spinner's landing. Finally landed Haseul stared out into Animoid Row through her side wind shield but it was no use. The now heavy rain made it impossible to discern any of the figures hurriedly moving away from an once busy street. Haseul had travelled to this part of Los Angeles to meet with one of our usual information brokers, an exotic pets dealer that often journeyed outside the city limits to conduct business. She knew it was primarily a front for another business but she did not care - her objective was clear: find the missing replicants and send them back to New Seoul as soon as possible, and claim her bounty reward. </p><p>Her train of thought would be disturbed as a cloaked broad shouldered approached her spinner and gently knocked against the driver's side window. Firmly grasping her blaster pistol, Haseul lowered the window enough as she could see who was on the other side while having sufficient space to take a shot just in case. "Miss Jo, Miss Jo! No need to worry," said a thick accented voice outside. She instantly recognised their voice, unlocking the right passenger door. "Get inside, you will go bald if you stay in the rain." The figure outside chuckled, hurriedly walking around the vehicle and climbing inside with some difficult as they barely fit inside spinner due to their sheer height.</p><p>Herman was no ordinary man, and that alone was made clear by his tallness. He had long ago made his way to Los Angeles as the European Union collapsed and old conflicts reignited between bordering nations, driven to desperation by the scarcity of essential resources to maintain life. His squared jaw, tiny grey eyes, and balding head gave him a disarming appearance, but Haseul understood that appearances deceive and despite Herman's long termed dedication to recreating long extinct animals for sale, he was also involved in other shadier schemes that placed him in an ideal position to find things she would never be able to trace using official channels. Everyone working in Animoid Row had at least two jobs, she figured. </p><p>"Desert iguanas, Miss Jo. Are they not wonderful?"</p><p>Haseul blinked.</p><p>"Someone from the old world, a unternehmer, came to my humble store the other day. I greeted this very important looking man and he just ignored me. His attention was lost on my precious collection of synthetic animals, some of my best work. But I could tell from his eyes that he was not happy. No-no. So, I approached the man and asked if there was something he wanted. Do you know what he said?"</p><p>"A desert iguana?" Haseul answered.</p><p>Herman giggled. "Precisely! Strangest of men with credits flowing out of his pockets and his biggest wish in life is to own a desert iguana, And for what? So he can bring it back home and show it to his kinder and friends. We humans are very strange creatures: we don't value what we have, and when it's no longer here we long for it. The incoherences of the world. Anyway, I was working on my latest pet project when I received your urgent message. No trouble coming my way I hope?" </p><p>Haseul shook her head. "No trouble for now, the LAPD seems to be busy dealing with internal problems. I need your assistance as usual: standard fare, no fishy information or else I might be forced to come after one of your shopkeepers. Especially after their last stunt at Nightclub Row got a few civilians injured. Even if it's outside my jurisdiction you know that sometimes Blade Runners accidentally retire suspected replicants." </p><p>"As they say in America: duly noted, sergeant," Herman's tone shifted into seriousness, understanding her warning. "How can old Herman help you?"</p><p>"Weeks ago a transport ship crash landed close to the Greater Los Angeles limits. The ship was commanded by a group of replicant escapees from one of the off-world colonies. Metal scrappers close to the border spotted them heading towards the city but didn't bother reporting anything to Rep-Detect." Haseul replied, reaching within her trench coat's side pocket. She retrieved a folded sheet, handing it over to Herman. "This is a satellite photo of the ship and where it likely crashed based on the re-entry route. You should be able to send one of your assistants to inspect the crash site and find anything they might have left behind."</p><p>"That will cost extra," Herman hummed. </p><p>"Fine, but you better turn up something or you know what will happen."</p><p>Herman bowed his head, his hands interlaced as if he was about to pray. </p><p>"A deal is a deal, I am a man of my word, Miss Jo! As for what you asked in the message you sent me, I am afraid no whispers have come to me. Los Angeles is big, there are many places to hide in, even more if you are immune or bold enough to face the dangers living in the sewers. But rest assured I'll send some of my friends to keep an eye out just in case. Unlike the pets I make, Miss Jo, replicants have ambitions: they are smart, they want to live, to be recognised as valuable and deserving of the same universal rights you and I enjoy. And just like we make mistakes and trust the wrong people, they do the same. Even in the recreation of synthetic human life we have projected our own sins onto pure beings born without prejudice against the world."</p><p>Haseul remained silent.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Escape</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The transport ship's engine rumbled to life, thrust awaken by the ship's return to normal space. Their escape from New Seoul had not been an easy one but as soon as they had made it to the colony's orbit the activation of the ship's faster than light drive put them millions of kilometres away, making it virtually impossible for anyone to pursue them. Despite their odds of survival Vivi was amused that Chuu's erratic pilot skills had managed to prevent their capture (and destruction). </p><p>But then again she was not in a position to criticise her fellow crew member as neither had any real experience piloting space vessels. Without the codes for activating the ship's artificial intelligence or sufficient time for one of them to hack into the main computer, they were left with no choice but to allow one of them to take over the pilot seat. No one volunteered at first but then Chuu stepped forward and a mutiny almost broke while bullets pinged against the spaceship's hull. Nonetheless they had evaded the New Seoul authorities and were now on their way back to Earth, to find refuge among humans in their dying homeworld -- that was the plan.</p><p>"Jump complete! We are back in normal space," Chuu cheerfully announced, stretching out her arms. "All that time I spent on virtual simulators really paid off, huh?" Vivi who stood behind her placed a hand on Chuu's shoulder gently squeezing it. "You did well, Chuu. Can you check why the ship stopped?" "According to Chuu's pilot console," she pointed to the small dark green screen in front of her, "the ship's jump drive needs to be cooled following every jump. It's like a safety precaution to ensure we are not blown up into bits while in an alternative dimension. But you do not have to worry about that when you have a Chuutastic pilot."</p><p>"You almost got us all killed, that is not something to brag about," said a voice behind them. Olivia Hye entered the ship's bridge, plopping down on the co-pilot seat and buckling its safety belt around her waist. "It was a huge risk, mathematically speaking, but she did it and we are safe," Vivi chimed in, receiving Olivia's trademark wolf like stare before she returned her focus to the co-pilot console. "She is cranky, she is the crankiest girl in the whole wide world," Chuu sang with the intention of provoking Olivia, winning nothing but a firmer squeeze on her right shoulder by Vivi which Chuu understood as an order to remain silent.</p><p>"The coordinates we used in the jump were the last logged ones, probably part of the automated system. Prior to our escape Go Won found out through one of her fans that the dockyards were understaffed to the point everything was being handled by basic computers. The meat bags never expected some of us would someday outsmart them and exploit their faulty security," Olivia coolly said, her fingers hastily typing on the co-pilot's console keyboard. "They still found a way to remotely trigger a very rudimentary security protocol to maintain navigation off-line. But humans - being humans - forgot that they keep maintenance logs with instructions on how to manually reset these systems. I should be done soon."</p><p>"I trust you, Olivia." Vivi's warm voice caught her off guard, temporarily freezing Olivia in her seat. Chuu noticed this lightly bumping her closed right fist against Olivia's arm. "No sleeping on the job, wolf girl, you have work to do." Vivi couldn't help but smile at Olivia's startled look before she returned to her original grumpy mood, again bickering with Chuu that she had no right to question her work ethic. Watching them fight never ceased to be amusing, Vivi thought to herself, but she still had to moderate both Chuu's endless stream of energy and Olivia's own tendency for shying away from everyone. Someone had to guide them, to keep them safe from harm. In Vivi's mind she had failed to do that since their inception date. Their escape, her plan, was just as much as about allowing them to be free as getting rid of her guilt. </p><p>Olivia's tampering with the ship's computer jolted her back into the real world as alarm sounds buzzed all over and the bridge's lighting shifted intermittently between red and white. "Olivia, what is going on?" Vivi calmly asked, trying to appear as serene as possible. "Nothing to worry about!" Olivia shouted between the sounding alarm. "I just launched maintenance mode and it's assimilating the fact that we are in space. There is only a small chance one of the pressurised blast doors might suddenly open and blast us all into the void." Moments later the alarms died out, returning the bridge to its previous normality only for Chuu to briefly imitate a warning siren which resulted in Olivia referring to her a "potato head."</p><p>"Chuu's navigation is on," she tapped a finger on the pilot screen,"thanks to Olivia, of course. Now all we have to do is run the programme and pray we are not trapped in a black hole."  </p><p>"If we were close to a black hole we would not exist," Olivia retorted. "Who says we truly exist? But this is not the right time to get chuulisophilcal..." Chuu's pun using her name only made Olivia groan, causing Vivi to laugh. To her embarrassment both women turned around and stared at her. "Unbelievable," they said in unison, leading Vivi to cup her cheeks as shield underneath a flaring blush. "Let's not pay attention to me and focus on tracking where we are, shall we?" </p><p>"Chuu won't be forgetting this time any time soon!" she grinned at Vivi who promptly decided that was her cue to exit the bridge, trusting the two to keep up with their assigned role. </p><p>"Do you think we teased her too hard?" were the last words Vivi overheard Olivia asking Chuu before the pressurised door leading into the bridge closed behind her.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for all the kudos I have received so far, hope you have been enjoying this story.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Arrival</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the shadow of the Sol System's gas giant Jupiter a burst of light cracked through the darkness of space, forming a blinding disk structure that lasted as long as a single spacecraft emerged from within it. In a system full of unregulated traffic with hundreds of ships journeying between Earth and the Off-World Colonies a transport ship designated as automated rose little suspicion beyond its radio silence and apparent set course. However for the ship's crew, wanted runaway replicants, the stakes were very much high. Entering the humans' domain had been fairly easy so far, but the problem lied upon approaching their homeworld's orbit without attracting any attention from nearby stations in Luna and in the orbit of Mars Prime, one of the first planets to have been fully colonised and partially terraformed to sustain human life. </p><p>This is why between jumps they had spent hours calculating the best route as to avoid any issues, well aware of their own limitations as no one aboard bore any real experience sailing the vast domains of space. Nonetheless they all trusted Olivia - who had learned much from studying the ship's systems and accessing its memory banks - and Chuu, their pilot, who by sheer luck and passion for simulation games had ensured their escape from New Seoul and dodged any disabling shots that could have well terminated their escape plan and existence as a whole. She excitedly announced they were back in normal space, so loud that her co-pilot Olivia covered her ears and silently cursed her. Vivi stood behind them her curiosity lost on what lied outside as she looked through the bridge's front view window. She knew that planets, specifically gas giants, were enormous but nothing had prepared her to see Jupiter so up close.</p><p>"Chuu, full thrusters now or else we are going to be dragged into Jupiter," Olivia's order was quickly put into action catching Vivi off-guard, the sudden shift in speed causing her to nearly tumble but she was able to hold onto Chuu's seat. "All right! The Chuuexpress is on the move, we will be making a small detour through the floating rocks field," Olivia interrupted Chuu, "it's called the asteroid belt," "... and we should be close to Earth in just... How many minutes, Olivia?"  Chuu looked over to Olivia who shrugged in return, "who are you even talking to? Did you even activate the announcement system?" Chuu blinked. "The announcement what now?" Olivia sighed in frustration, switching on the ship wide announcement loudspeakers and repeating word by word what Chuu had previously said adding that everyone should buckle down as they could have to take on evasive manoeuvres on the route towards Earth. "Have we received any communications since entering the system? We should be appearing in their long range scans by now, security around Earth is known to be strict," Vivi said claiming the only seat left inside the ship's bridge and locking the safety belt around her waist. "Nothing so far but our own scanner keeps pinging ships everywhere, and I doubt New Seoul was able to warn them in time. We might able to slip unnoticed," Olivia answered her while inputting commands on the co-pilot's console keyboard to access the communication array and scanner of the transport ship. "We know this ship was used as an automated transport between Earth and New Seoul so it probably is still registered in their logs as such. Unless they got a heads up and are just waiting for us to be out in the open so they have a clear shot."</p><p>Away from Jupiter's orbit they gained speed until entering the asteroid belt, gradually lowering thrusters once inside to ensure they could dodge any rocky remains should it be necessary. From the photographs she had seen Vivi remembered the asteroid belt to be much denser but years of strip mining asteroids for valuable minerals had left behind a thick cloud of celestial dust and chunks of worthless silicate minerals, enabling a safer passage through an otherwise dangerous place. Outside the boundaries of the asteroid field the transport ship they commanded thrust onwards in a direct course to Earth. From where they were the humans' homeworld appeared as a single pale blue dot, the fragile jewel of the inner planets of the Sol system. Vivi observed with excitation as the distance between their ship and Earth grew shorter with every passing minute, the iridescent glow of the Earth's atmosphere becoming clearer. Prior to their escape from the New Seoul colony she had investigated as deep as possible the history of the planet and its inhabitants, finding particularly curious the contradiction between humans' obsession with believing their homeworld as an unique sacred origin of their species while having invested so many resources into wiping out each other at the cost of ruining their home for centuries to come. Vivi understood why some of her fellow replicants were prejudiced towards humans - after what they had endured as part of an entertainment unit - but at the same time she realised that just as replicants most of humanity was trapped on a dying planet with no hope of ever escaping, being forced to toil endlessly for their own survival. Even though their existence on Earth was illegal, there were still humans willing to co-exist with replicants to the point where there were safe havens scattered all over the world, hidden from the jurisdiction of the infamous blade runners. One of these places, known as the Sanctuary, existed kilometres away from one of the largest remaining urban centres: Los Angeles. That was there they headed and if the rumours were correct, Vivi hoped, they would be able to settle there and finally be able to find a true meaning to their newly achieved freedom. Assuming, of course, that Chuu was capable enough of landing their ship without crashing it into a thousand metal bits in the endless desert surrounding the city.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>What are your thoughts on the story so far? It would be nice to receive some feedback/reviews.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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